Department of Nuclear Medicine & Positron Emission Tomography ❯ Our Technology ❯ Biograph Vision - SiPM PET/CT Scanner

2 Scanners on 18/F HKSH
1 Scanner on 3/F HKSH Eastern Medical Centre

Our Centre has acquired the first innovative digital SiPM PET/CT scanner in China to provide revolutionary breakthrough in PET imaging accuracy. This innovative technology precisely quantifies cell metabolism according to physiologic characteristics and molecular biochemical properties, which is applied to different clinical specialties such as oncology and neurology. The Nuclear Medicine Specialty team can detect and analyze subtle metabolic changes for underlying pathology. Clinicians can obtain accurate information and prescribe the most suitable treatment regime for patients, such as radiation dosimetry for radiotherapy and radionuclide therapy by oncologist.

In early 2019, we installed the only “Biograph Vision” system with the latest SiPM technology in Hong Kong. It has unrivaled hardware specifications and image quality. Its features include:

• Smaller & More Detectors
  The dimensions of photon crystal elements have reduced from 4 to 3.2 mm (the smallest available), which allows more detectors per unit area. The number of crystal element has doubled to 60K from the previous generation and the arrays are coped with seamlessly compacted detector. The new assembly significantly enhances image resolution and small lesion detectability.
  
  
• Enhanced Timing Performance of TOF (Time-of-flight) Hardware
  The breakthrough in technology shortens the time resolution of the system, from half to less than 1/4 nanoseconds (the shortest available), and boosts the signal detection sensitivity by 4 times.
  
  
• Extended Scanning Field
  The length has increased from 21 to 26 cm (the longest available), shortening the total examination time; moreover, bore diameter has expanded to 78 cm (the widest available), sparing more space for body positioning needs.
  
  
• Multi-parametric PET Imaging
  By monitoring PET tracer dynamics inside body instantaneously after injection, the imaging data measures multiple metabolic parameters for absolute quantification of cell metabolism. For example, the absolute metabolic rate and distribution volume in pharmaceutical science calculated by image-based Patlak analysis.
  
  
• Daily automatic self-calibration
  Guarantees image quality and system reliability.